Her question startles me. Maybe the whiskey’s loosening her tongue too.
I consider deflecting. But hell, why start now? Too much truth has come out already tonight, for both of us.
“Three years,” I say. “Give or take.”
It only started feeling like an eternity since she came into my life.
“Since before the divorce, even?” she asks.
“Since around the time things went bad. Which was a while before the divorce was final.” I look up at the stars. “After, there was learning to be a single dad. And the move. And the ranch.” I pause. “And I just didn’t… I didn't want to, before.”
“Before what?” she asks. Barely above a whisper.
Before you, of course.Not that I say it. But from the way her breath catches, the way her eyes search mine, she knows.
My thumb makes one more slow stroke along her ankle, and I hear her breathing change.
She pushes off the ledge and comes towards me.
Her legs wrap around my body as her hands land on my shoulders. Her eyes are all blue fire in the swimming pool light. Her skin is soft and her body is warm and lush beneath my hands.
“Three years is a long time to be lonely,” she murmurs.
It’s been a long time since I’ve held a woman. And this one, the one I want more than anything I can ever remember wanting in my entire life…
Fuck, she feels so good, wrapped around me like this. It would take hardly anything. Just tug her panties to the side and I could slide right inside her. Make her mine.
“Yeah,” I say. “Long damn time.”
She's still wrapped around me, legs hooked at my back, and I can feel every inch of her against every inch of me. The water isn't cold enough to put out the fire inside me. Nothing is.
Her thighs tighten around me under the water and I have to stop myself from gripping her hips and grinding her against my rock-hard cock.
I rest my hands on her waist instead, fingers flexing with the effort it takes to keep my touch light.
Her lips nearly brush my ear as she leans in. “I’ve been lonely too. Sometimes I just want someone to hold me. Kiss me. Touch me.”
Let me be that man.
The words claw up my throat and I have to literally bite my tongue to keep them from spilling out.
“You deserve that,” I say instead.
Her eyes drift to my mouth.
“I've waited this long,” she says. “I want it to matter, you know? I want it to mean something. I want it to be with someone I… someone I trust, at least. Trust to care about me. Trust to make me feel good.”
Her hands have drifted from my chest up to my shoulders, and her fingers curl in, like she's steadying herself. Or maybe like she doesn't want me to go anywhere.
She bites her lip and looks at me with those big blue eyes I could drown in.
“Someone,” she says, “who already knows me.”
The space between our lips is nothing. An inch. Maybe less. I can feel the warmth of her breath. See the water glittering on her eyelashes.
Her eyes are on my mouth too.
I could close this distance. Make every year she waited worth it.
